Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

The information economy has not only revolutionized business globally, it has also created a number of difficult challenges and opportunities for the accounting industry.

Online Challenges For Accounting And Financial Businesses

Today, more than ever, certified public accountants must work harder and find smarter ways to stand out from the crowd, find new clients, and keep their current clientele. Not only do you have to be fully involved in the communities and industries your business serves, you must also develop and maintain a strong presence online. This includes having a website and figuring out smarter ways to promote your business services online.

In addition to investing money in offline marketing activities like advertising on newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and tv spots, etc., businesses in the accounting industry are also finding that they need to assign a bigger amount of their budget to develop and manage a website that drives new prospects, engages users, outranks the competition in search engines and social media, and helps them gain wider marketing exposure online.

This means that your site not only has to look great, load fast, and be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, the needs of the website may change in time and sections will need to be updated often. This requires having a well-planned website and content management strategy in place.

One other challenge that accounting businesses face with their websites (as do other businesses for that matter), is that your site has around thirty seconds to provide visitors what they need or they will look elsewhere.

“Websites have evolved into central information hubs where service information is still present but enhanced with web portals, hyperlinks to state and federal sites, and a variety of free tools.”

Michael Alter, http://www.accountingweb.com/technology/accounting-software/tips-for-improving-your-website

Opportunities For Accounting Professionals

As well as facing many new challenges, there are also plenty of online opportunities available for businesses in the accounting profession that can evolve to meet online economy demands and who can think outside the box when it comes to marketing their business better online.

This article will help you uncover ways and opportunities to attract new potential clients and establish online credibility for your business.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also emphasize the benefits and advantages of using WordPress to power your accounting website or blog.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using WordPress, see the articles below:

• Learn How A Poorly Designed Website Can Lose You Prospective Buyers And What To Do About It
• Using WordPress To Grow A Successful Business Online

Useful Tips To Improve Your Website

This section looks at ways to improve your website and get better results online. We show you what web pages you need, what content works best, ways of improving your site’s layout and navigation, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your accounting website, visit this page: A Practical Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Improve Your Website Pages

All business websites need several essential pages. Let’s review the pages your  need and how to structure your website for best results.

Products And Services Description Page

You need to include a page that lists your services and products.

Your page should include all the products and services you offer, such as:

• Business – planning, formation, general accounting, payroll, financial statement compilation, book keeping, forecasting, financing, budgeting, strategic planning, consulting services, etc.
• Taxation – preparing, planning, reviewing, auditing, advising, problem resolution
• Investment strategies
• Corporate accounting
• Wealth creation
• Superannuation/retirement plan (401k) advice
• Audit risk assessment and assurance
• Quickbooks – setup, training, tune up, and support
• Specialist services – mergers, acquisitions, information technology, secretarial, rentals, trusts, fiduciary accounting, succession planning, selling businesses, asset transfers, etc.
• Lending and leasing

List all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about what these services do and why they should book an appointment.

Who We Are

This page should give a description of your business and explain to visitors what it stands for, its unique approach, community activities, etc.

Remember to also mention any business awards, recognitions, certifications, accreditations, associations, publications, etc., that could be used to promote the company and position it above the competition.

(List all of your awards recognitions, certifications, accreditations, publications, associations, etc. in the About page. Screenshot source: deloitte.com)

Meet Our Team

Are you searching for ideas to sell more products or services online or get visitors to interact more on your site? Then help prospective clients get to know, like and trust your organization better.

Prospective clients need to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team. This page should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors are probably not familiar with accounting terms it should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialties mean. It should also include social buttons so your visitors can follow individual team members on their social networks.

In this page, don’t be afraid to show the human side of your team members with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to highlight each team member’s expertise and qualifications, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add an employee description page. Image source: deepsky.com)

If you need help how to easily create and add a simple and easy-to-maintain list of employees or team members in your site without coding skills, see this tutorial: How To Easily Add An Employee List Directory

Job Opportunities Page

List any career opportunities available within your company. It could include training offered, employee benefits, professional development, social aspects of working for your organization, etc. You should also include information about upcoming career opportunities in the accounting industry.

Also include a positions available section in your page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to this page, join your announcements list, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies & Testimonials

Case studies and testimonials are a great way to show prospective clients them minimise tax, increase profitability, or grow strategically. By adding a page with testimonials from past clients and case studies, you will also help to establish social proof online.

(Add a page with case studies and client reviews. Screenshot image source: pcg-services.com)

To learn more about using testimonials, case studies and reviews, refer to this article: How To Improve Your Sales With Effective Client Testimonials

Contact Us

A contact page is crucial.

Your contact page should include some or all of the following information about your organization:

• Business Name
• Your physical address
• Telephone
• Facsimile
• Email address
• Google Map and directions
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Links to social media pages
• Online chat feature

If your business services multiple areas you should make that clear when displaying the address and contact info.

You could also include links to the most commonly asked questions, main pages, special offers, helpdesk, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Blog

A blog is a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Most blogging platforms typically comprise of a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to promote your business using timely content such as industry news, product releases, training articles, opinions and discussions, how-to videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an existing accounting or financial services site, then consider adding a WordPress-powered blog to promote your business.

If you don’t have a website yet, or your existing accounting or financial services site is hard to manage or not delivering you the results you want, then WordPress can serve as both your website and business blog.

Very few people know that an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic machine that can instantly begin driving a stream of web traffic to your business, simply by publishing new content to your website on a regular basis.

(WordPress can drive new traffic automatically to your site)

For more details, go here: Web Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Turn Your WordPress Web Site Into An Automated Traffic Generation Machine

Legal Info Pages

It’s vitally important to ensure they have a compliant website, not just for building trust and credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not breaching local, regional and federal laws or regulations wherever you service clients.

Depending on what products and services you provide, adding some or all of the following legal pages to your accounting or financial services site will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential legal threats or inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• Privacy Statement
• Terms Of Use
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Health Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

We have written a detailed article on adding legal pages to your site here: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Improving Your Web Content

In today’s fiercely competitive digital economy, the sooner you begin to engage in the practice of content marketing, the quicker you will begin to differentiate yourself from your competitors.

You want to provide great content with advice and tips that will get your readers to share your content and come back for more. Publishing content is the most effective way to inform and teach site visitors and prospective clients about your business.

For example, for an accounting business, topics can include the following:

• How balance sheets work
• Overlooked tax deductions
• Directors’ duties and legal responsibilities
• How to present accounts for non-profit activities
• Cashflow planning
• Maximizing business insurance cover
• Protecting revenues
• How to structure your self-managed retirement fund
• Do’s and don’ts of … (e.g. purchasing vs leasing, claiming business expenses, etc.)

You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your prospective clients gain a better understanding of your accounting or financial services, such as finance accounting, small business accounting, business budgeting, reducing debt, financial concepts made simple, etc.

Remember to use relevant keywords and terminology in your articles that readers will be searching for.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with actionable information and practical tips that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating useful content for your visitors and grow your business online using content marketing strategies. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Ways Of Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

Improving your site’s user experience (typically referred to as UX) helps to keep visitors coming back and using your site. This section will show you ways you can improve your visitor engagement and UX.

Adding RSS Feeds

An RSS feed provides plenty of benefits for your site.

If you provide valuable content, other businesses will want to syndicate your content.

Some of the benefits of having other businesses syndicate your content, include:

• All of your content updates are in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feed can be shared online
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• An RSS feed provides links back to your content
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• RSS provides a number of ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. view the content on their mobile device using different applications)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits to providing great content on your website from other websites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

You can find RSS feeds with useful content by searching online for finance-related government departments or respected industry bodies.

Here are examples of RSS feeds you may want to consider adding to your website:

• Taxation Policy Center: http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/press/rss.cfm
• Australian Taxation Office: https://www.ato.gov.au/RSS-news-feeds.aspx
• Canada Revenue Agency: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/rssfeeds/
• UK HM Revenue and Customs: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/rss/rss.htm
• South Africa Revenue Service: http://www.sars.gov.za/Pages/RSS-Feeds.aspx

(RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your site’s UX.)

Add Checklists & Forms

Adding checklists and forms to your site is a fantastic way to increase user engagement, add value to your visitors and provide something unique. They can provide step-by-step instructions and resources to get necessary tasks completed. They are great business planning tools.

You can provide forms and checklists covering a range of subjects such as:

• How To Set Up A Company
• Rental Property Checklist
• Non-Profit Activity Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Sole Trader Tax Checklist
• Self Managed Super Fund Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Provide Other Tools

Providing unique online tools, gadgets and applications for businesses (or links to these tools) on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to your target audience. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are great tools to add to accounting websites. Others would include time cards, or retirement and interest calculators.

In part two, we discuss a several WordPress plugins and themes you can add to your website that improve your search engine optimization, increase user engagement and drive more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of section one.

Click on this link to continue reading:

• The Ultimate Guide On How To Build And Grow Your Accounting Or Financial Services Website – Part Two

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